DISCOVERING LEARNING POTENTIAL IN CHILDREN WITH MODERATE INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES WITH A MENTAL AGE OF 2 TO 3 YEARS – THE CONCEPT AND ITS PRACTICAL IMPLICATION

There have been many research studies dealing with dynamic assessment of learning potential over the last decades (Budoff, 1974; Brown and Ferrara, 1994; Feuerstein, 1980; Kulesza 2004; Lidz, 1995; Tzuriel, 2000). The researchers emphasize great advantages of dynamic assessment, which - compared with static tests - does not only make it possible to assess what the child already knows and can do, but it also provides insight into the learning process and makes it possible to determine the child's educational sensitivity to the teacher's clues As supporting children in their development is extremely important in the case of delays and disabilities, the attempts to design a model of dynamic assessment and a tool that would be based on it are still valid.

The author of this article attempted to develop such a model based on three concepts:
1. Sociocultural theory by L.S. Vygotsky (2004),
2. Social learning theory by A. Bandura (1977), and
3. Theory of cognitive change by R. Case (1985). Each of the theories marks the individual links of the assessment; however, the most important is L.S. Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development, because makes it possible to distribute tasks in the development zones.

Methods:
The study covered 36 children with moderate intellectual disabilities aged 5 to 7 that were divided into two groups according to their mental age: two-year-olds - 18 children, and three-year-olds - 18 children. The results of the children with a mental age of 2 were compared with the results of the children with a mental age of 3. The answers to the following questions were looked for:
1) What are the children's cognitive achievements in the Zone of Actual Development (ZAD), in the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), and in the Zone of Distal Development (ZDD)?
2) What is the effectiveness of the support provided by the teacher during the assessment?
3) To what extent do the cognitive abilities of the children with moderate intellectual disabilities increase with developmental age?

Each child was given a set of developmentally adapted tasks. The tool was reliable and valid (Kulesza 2016).

Main findings:
1) The children with moderate intellectual disabilities were able to communicate and interact effectively; they used the adult's support effectively;
2) The participants' strength was a well developed mechanism of imitation;
3) A significantly lower general level of task performance was seen in the children with moderate intellectual disabilities with a mental age of 2 as compared to the children with a mental age of 3;
4) Most of the problems solved by the children with moderate intellectual disabilities were in the Zone of Proximal Development (the total in both age groups - 15 problems out of 24 problems);
5) The use of the strategy of providing the children with clues significantly increased the level of task performance and made it possible to discover the proximal abilities of the children with moderate intellectual disabilities.
Based on the results of dynamic assessment, the teacher can devise an individualized education plan for a student.